This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

In my however many years I have been on this board, I have never seen this little anticipation for the upcoming season. Usually, we'd have more trolls by now, and new topics and old topics being discussed to death for the upcoming season. I know people here are waiting for the season to arrive, but usually there is much more discussion about it (from the raptors' perspective), but not so much this year. I am expecting to see an increase of trolls come October 15th onwards...

Re: This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

I'm just waiting for my work schedule for the end of Oct. to be posted soon. It will be a hell of a time to trade or try to get rid of a shift Friday night on Halloween. It's not even about that. Screw Halloween but I NEED to be there at the ACC for that home opener.

Re: This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

Well we don't really have anymore young developing talent unless you count Bargnani so it's really just a matter of seeing whether or not JO can go for 18/10 over the season and if the roster can stay relatively healthy. If those two criteria are matched then we can worry about how we fare against our opponents in the second round. I firmly believe we can advance past the first round though.

Re: This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

I'm not full of "anticipation" because I am worried about a big let-down this season. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I have visions of the Lottery in our future, and until the season gets started and proves me wrong, I will fear the worst.

Re: This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prodigy

Well we don't really have anymore young developing talent unless you count Bargnani so it's really just a matter of seeing whether or not JO can go for 18/10 over the season and if the roster can stay relatively healthy. If those two criteria are matched then we can worry about how we fare against our opponents in the second round. I firmly believe we can advance past the first round though.

Prediction 49 wins.

True. For the here and now the Raps have suddenly become a 'right now' team. Bargnani might still get the benefit of the doubt from a couple people, but unless you're really optimistic about Roko Ukic that's about the extent of the upside we have to look forward to. As good as JO might be, I don't see even his best case scenario quite matching up to his glory days in Indy.

Re: This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

Call it silent optomism. This season depends on JO, and we are all little fearful of what that could mean. With JO playing, kapono has room on the outside to shoot and his defensive lapses are mitigated. With JO, if Bargnani hasn't developed it's less critical. With JO, Sam has to be better coach (at least I hope), with JO interior defense should be better, with JO rebounding should be improved and second chance points for the opposition should be kept in check.

If the JO experiment fails I think we all know the season it toast. We have waited for Bargnani, waited for Graham, hoped kapono would be worth his salary, hoped Sam would learn the game, and we all know that counting on a combination of those things to happen, like we did last year is wishful at best.

Re: This is the least amount of anticipation I have ever seen on this forum!

As others have said in this thread, its because this year we're not depending on a draft pick or a youth movement. We are definitely still anticipating the season with optimism, but its a case where we know that our team is already good, our improvement is depending almost solely on JO. So i'm looking forward to see if he's really 100% and how he will help us, but as B4Ball said its more of a silent optimism. I'm taking the wait and see approach.